Posted
by
timothyon Saturday December 01, 2012 @11:26AM
from the no-idea-yerhonor dept.

quantr writes with the news that Apple claims that the company "wasn't aware during trial that the foreman of the jury that issued a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung Electronics Co. was involved in a lawsuit with his former employer, Seagate Technology Inc. 'Samsung asked Apple to disclose when it first learned about the litigation between the jury foreman, Velvin Hogan, and Seagate. Apple responded in a filing yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California. Samsung is attempting to get the Aug. 24 verdict thrown out based on claims the trial was tainted by the foreman's failure during jury selection to tell U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, who presided over the case, that he filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and was sued by Seagate."

I suggest you read up [google.com] on this a bit. I agree that the Seagate/Samsung tie seems to be a bit tenuous until you look at what this man did to get on the jury. He wanted to be there and that, my friend, demonstrates bias.

Upon further research, it appears that he also ignored the judge's specific instructions, presumably because as a (former?) patent holder, he knew more about patent law than the judge does.

It was no fishing expedition. It was the foreman's own ego that is doing him and his trial in. No question he has a mission and intent in all of this. He stated as much in his many interviews. Things he said like "wanting to send a message" demonstrates he wanted to be judge, jury and executioner.

As far as knowing more about patent law? Either this guy doesn't know what he thinks he knows about the applicability of patents (he said something didn't infringe because of the processor it ran on was different? Really? By that standard, nothing infringes on Apple devices because Apple uses "special processors.") or he blew ample amounts of false information out to the rest of the jury to get the results he wanted. Either way, it's misbehavior on the part of this jurist. This is definitely one for the books and if this guy doesn't get some sort of action taken against him, it will be a little surprising. (Though I can see the argument for letting him slide on this... we don't want to discourage jurists from participating or we will NEVER have juries if they have risk of being prosecuted themselves... they will have to be careful about that.)

Apple's cases are becoming crap. The more data that comes out, the easier it becomes to win against Apple. And the more people win against Apple, the harder it will be for Apple to squeeze settlements out of people. I think we're already seeing an end of this debacle of Apple going thermonuclear. If Jobs were alive, I think he would have halted all of this long before it tarnished Apple's image as it has. Apple just looks like a spoiled rich kid now.

Except that Apple never should have won in the first place and almost certainly will lose on appeal. If the jury had not been tainted by a jury foreman with an agenda, Apple would never have won -- and before you dispute this, please do some research. This man is on record incriminating himself.

I don't know, it is hard to see how a trial taking place down the road from Apple's headquarters against a Korean company could be all that fair when the jury clearly have a vested in interest in protecting their local economy and the US economy in general. At the very least the retrial/appeal should be moved to a more neutral location.

So in your opinion the Jury Foreman was right to with hold the fact that he was involved in other lawsuits, including one against Samsung where he LOST the verdict.
It is ok in your world when the Judge asks you to disclose ALL litigation to with hold the one important one against the defendant.

Then you'll be happy to know that Seagate bought Samsungs hard drive division in 2011, not the other way around, so I don't see how he could be biased AGAINST Samsung when Samsung lost their hard drive division to Seagate.

Let me suggest you take off your cupertino-colored glasses and educate yourself on the facts.

1. Samsung sold its hard drive business to Seagate and received stock in return. So much stock that Samsung is now Seagate's largest shareholder.

Also isn't it the job of Samsungs lawyers to ask the jury members questions during jury selection to make sure they're not biased?

THE COURT: Okay. Welcome back. Please take a seat. We had a few more departures in your absence.Let's continue with the questions.The next question is, have you or a family member or someone very close to you ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?Let's see. On the first row, who would raise their hand to that question?All right. Let's go to Mr. Hogan.

I'm pretty sure "THE COURT" means the Judge. And I left the "Mr. Hogan" in there too, so there was no doubt.

Also isn't it the job of Samsungs lawyers to ask the jury members questions during jury selection to make sure they're not biased? Samsung should be suing their lawyers for missing this, it's not apple's fault.

That's not the issue here. The issue is that Apple has claimed that Samsung should have known about the foreman's connection, and must have been hiding the information deliberately in case they needed to appeal. So Samsung asked, "well, did you know?" If Apple answered in the affirmative, then they open themselves up to the same complaint they made about Samsung. If they answer in the negative, then their claim about Samsung becomes nothing but sheer unfounded speculation. Apple had no winning card to play here, so they chose the least harmful one.

If they answer in the negative, then their claim about Samsung becomes nothing but sheer unfounded speculation.

I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion. I might reasonably allege that you should have recognized your ex wife. My failure to realize that you've had previous dealings with her doesn't let you off the hook.

Note that in no way am I defending the travesty of the ruling. It's utterly ridiculous. But it doesn't seem unreasonable that a major corporation's legal department would have a list somewhere of people they've sued (or been sued by), and might want to consult that list before starting new legal procee

Well, gosh, that would be true if it weren't simply false! Samsung most definitely has said they didn't know until after the trial. In the reply that lead to this decision [groklaw.net]: "The court held only that claims of misconduct 'must be supported by proof that the evidence of misconduct was not discovered until after the verdict was returned,' which is precisely what Samsung has shown here." (Emphasis mine.)

When asked "did (the collective) you know about x?", and you did know, it may be easy to answer quickly - you only need identify one individual or document with that knowledge. To answer that you didn't know requires that all parties who could have known be asked, along with checking all relevant records. It's much harder to prove a negative, as they say.

Because one of Apple's objections to Samsung's motion to have the verdict overturned is that the information was readily available so Samsung should have known during the trial and therefore they've missed their opportunity to object. If Apple didn't know during the trial it undermines their argument (whereas if they had known and not brought it up it would have been even worse for them).

Look, the problem here isn't the jury, or the decision. Samsung did infringe that patent.

It's the BLOODY STUPID PATENT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ISSUED. A patent that fails basic common sense tests of invention, prior art and obviousness, because the patent office has gotten so far away from reality that it gives patents for existing stuff simply by adding "on a handset".

So you may have wished the jury was just normal people, who would see the stupidness of it, and reject the claim regardless of the patent, but instead you got a person who FOLLOWED THE PATENT LAW, the insane stupid, nonsensical law, and promptly issued a $1 billion penalty that was appropriate, if we all lived in a lunatic asylum where this patent regime makes sense.

IMHO, the fix for this decision is for Korea to issue a patent infringement case against Apple for $2 billion, and make it clear to everyone that this is just protectionism disguised as an 'innovative' curved corner design, and a camera icon that looks like a camera.

i wouldn't say samsung infringed, cause fact in this trial the jury pretty much ignored their instructions when it came to prior art. Even in post interviews they admitted they did, and speed through the sheet.

It's possible that the jury instructions regarding prior art were misinterpreted but you are wrong about what was said in the post interviews. In the post interviews the foreman said that the jury was having trouble reaching consensus on one patent relating to prior art and decided to move on to deliberate easier patents. When they were done with those easier patents they returned to the difficult issue that they skipped earlier. This is standard behavior in jury deliberations and not against the jury ins

And the issue they were having trouble with was they did not believe there could not be prior art. And that is where the foreman stepped in and told them as an expert in patents that the prior art they had been shown could not be valid because it ran on a different processor.

They never saw the most damning piece of prior art - Samsung's internal documents showing their iPhone-like prototypes in the design phase [arstechnica.net] before anyone outside of Apple had ever laid eyes on the iPhone. That was the evidence Judge Koh disallowed from the trial because Samsung missed a filing deadline.

I said at the time that this was a huge judicial error. That she was ignoring the spirit of the law to follow the letter of the law. The reason for having filing deadlines is to prevent one side from dragging out a trial for so long that the cost of the trial exceeds any award amount, thus making justice uneconomical. But in this case the potential outcome was worth billions of dollars, while a few days extension would've cost at most a few tens of thousands. So clearly the spirit of the law would not have been violated by allowing the evidence, with perhaps a stern reprimand to Samsung's lawyers for missing the deadline. But she disallowed it, and now we're most likely gonna have to waste millions of dollars on a new trial because of her decision.

I usually avoid posts with several ALL CAPS sentences (so I must ignore my own post after committing in:) ), but you make a good point. I've personally gone through hundreds of patents for my own entrepreneurial work, and can't believe the sheer number of patents that are "XYZ, which has been around for 20+ years, but now on a phone/mobile_device/tablet".

I was actually surprised Nokia won that patent suit against RIM. Wifi on a mobile device? The first thing I said to myself when Wifi came out was "Man, imagine this on a phone. Cheap calls and zero data plan overcharges". That was, of course, until telcos and ISPs decided that rather than innovate or improve infrastructure, they would just litigate against tech that benefits the customer (ie: anti net neutrality, fees for tethering your phone even though it costs the carrier nothing, likewise with SMS messages, which have been around for 20 years apparently, potentially forcing a voice plan on you if you are just using a data plan with Skype).

Regardless of how this affects my business personally, it seems the absurdity with patents and monopolistic practices amongst ISPs (whose money was used to lay the cable in the first place anyway?), there is a constant war on the consumer. I really wish the layperson (ie: 75%+ of voting individuals) would at least realize this so we could effect change. No wonder critical thinking isn't taught until university (if at all) and one can go through his or her whole life without a single course on formal logic, fallacies, and statistics.

Look, the problem here isn't the jury, or the decision. Samsung did infringe that patent.

It's the BLOODY STUPID PATENT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ISSUED. A patent that fails basic common sense tests of invention, prior art and obviousness

There aren't any "basic common sense tests" of invention, prior art, and obviousness, just as there isn't a "basic common sense test" for whether an accused murderer is guilty. They're legal decisions, subject to the requirements of due process, and must be supported by evidence. Just as you can't say, "I have a gut feeling that he looks guilty, so let's send him away for life," you can't say "I have a gut feeling that this patent is obvious, so let's make it invalid." You need sufficient evidence that prov

If there was sufficient evidence presented to them, yes, they could have found the patent invalid.

There is no infringement if the patent isn't valid.

Patent trials are a bit counterintuitive on this one. Infringement and validity are decided separately, so a jury could find that Samsung infringed the patent, but that the patent isn't valid. This might seem pointless, but if the invalidity finding is overturned on appeal, the infringement finding may still be upheld.

If there was sufficient evidence presented to them, yes, they could have found the patent invalid.

Sufficient prior art evidence was presented to them. The foreman in question convinced the rest of the people, acting as an "expert", that prior art did not invalidate patents. Jury members other than this foreman have stated that this is exactly what happened.

I was only speaking in general. I haven't read everything about this specific case, so I can't say whether or not I think this jury should have found any of these patents invalid. I've seen people here on Slashdot say various things about what happened with this jury, and I know enough about Slashdot, especially when it comes to patent law, not to assume any of it is true.

We seem to always know an awful lot nowadays. Secret meeting, secret negotiation. Yet there seem to be always plenty of people ready to say something. Maybe I am cynical, but I guess there too much incentive to have something "interesting" to say nowadays.

Let see it the other way. Neither Samsung, nor Apple has anything to benefit from any of this, much the contrary - winning, losing, their strategy was probably set for the next 10 years. But then out of nowhere, here comes a nicely packed little story f

Only if one of the warring parties presents them with enough evidence to do so.

When both parties are huge patent-holders, don't expert them to do more than nit-pick the specifics of the opposition's patents. Presenting more general arguments about the absurdities of the patent system might backfire undermine the value of their own portfolio...

The jury foreman did not have a previous tangle with Samsug. He had a previous tangle with Seagate. Seagate is not a subsidiary of Samsung. Samsung has invested in Seagate to the extent of a 10% share.

It seems a stretch to claim that the foreman's anger at Seagate from 20 years ago must necessarily extend to all current investors in Seagate.

Alleged miss interpretation. As I said in another post, there is conveniently a lot of stories around this jury. Remember that only the jury members were there but there a thousands of journalists ready to pay for an exiting story.

OK it could have happened the way the "press" says it has. But really, the guy hold that kind of a grudge for 20+ years, but then blew it up in the press ? And what kind of revenge is that ? That's a movie or book revenge, not a real life one. Victories in first instance is onl

The issue is not Samsung's investment in Seagate...the issue is the jurors were asked if they had been involved as either a defendant or plaintiff in civil litigation before and the foreman specifically omitted the Seagate lawsuit.

I'm not sure why this particular filing is important....Apple filed a similar motion asking Samsung to divulge when it first learned of the foreman's involvement in a Seagate lawsuit.

None of this seems as relevant as the foreman's apparent failure to actually consider the case on its own merit and rather substituting his own personal views/knowledge of patent law (which seems to be wildly incorrect based on comments both by the foreman and other jurors).

None of this seems as relevant as the foreman's apparent failure to actually consider the case on its own merit and rather substituting his own personal views/knowledge of patent law (which seems to be wildly incorrect based on comments both by the foreman and other jurors).

I'm not sure this matters. Remember that the jury is free to completely throw out the law if they like (Jury annulment). In general the decision of the jury cannot be questioned, even if their reason for coming to the verdict was, "I don't like police."

That is only the case on a criminal trial, and then only if nobody finds out about it before hand.

Jury nullification is not a legal right, it isn't something specifically granted to juries. It is a de facto ability in criminal trials due to the prohibition against double jeopardy. Once a jury has been impaneled, if the case is dismissed or an innocent verdict is returned, the case may never be brought for retrial. As such, the jury can nullify by returning an innocent verdict.

Not in the same way. Verdicts can still be reviewed. Even if the courts can't challenge findings of fact, they can challenge application of the law, which is the argument in this case. Also they can change the awards. That last one is real common. Juries tend to be very free with other people's money and the appellate courts often reign that in.

As a matter of fact, juries CAN find an innocent person guilty because they don't like them. Juries are arbiters of law and facts.

Now, in modern practice, the judge can overturn a jury decision in favor of the defense, but the judge doesn't have to.

It might be a miscarriage of justice, but it's legal. Thomas Jefferson justified it by saying essentially, "yes it's a problem, but better to give that power to juries, because if we give it to judges, it will be much worse."

A big company might not care, but a personal human being can hold a grudge forever. I know I would. This foreman tried to slip one by and now has been caught by the pure luck of the story of two star-crossed lawyers.

A big company might not care, but a personal human being can hold a grudge forever. I know I would. This foreman tried to slip one by and now has been caught by the pure luck of the story of two star-crossed lawyers.

Not to mention his going to the media afterwards and talking about how he screwed the verdict.

My understanding of the U.S. Legal System may not be up to snuff, but doesn't handpicking a jury (based upon their personal tastes) defeat the entire purpose? It would be like asking all of your selected jurors whether they or someone they love has been involved in a violent crime, and only admitting those who have into a case where the defendant is on trial for murder. At that point, it won't matter if it's Mr. Rogers on trial - every single person in the jury is now extremely emotionally invested, instead of neutral and supposedly rational. Selecting a random group ensures that there may only be one or two people with such an investment, and the odds of them swaying an entire jury are quite low if the facts presenting are overwhelming.

Actually, you are not so much selecting jurors during the process as you are removing potential jurors from the pool (because you can demonstrate some reason they would not be impartial). I believe both sides of the case also have a limited number of uncontested juror eliminations (from the jury).

My understanding of the U.S. Legal System may not be up to snuff, but doesn't handpicking a jury (based upon their personal tastes) defeat the entire purpose? It would be like asking all of your selected jurors whether they or someone they love has been involved in a violent crime, and only admitting those who have into a case where the defendant is on trial for murder.

I've been involved in two jury trials and one Jury "picking"at each one the very first questions asked (for weedingpurposes) were if anyone had ever filed for bankruptcy, or beeninvolved in any previous lawsuits. There might be exceptionsbut those people were excused when I was in attendance.

I was once asked if I thought if a police man would lie, as itwas pertinent to the case, "Hell ya!" and I was off that jury, butanybody who said no I felt had a warped sense of reality.

The first of which is that he was sued by Seagate, which not only bankrupted him but also put his house into foreclosure. That is something that I am sure he will never forget and he will be biased against any entity that has favorable dealings with the company that *ruined* him until his end of days. Now, I agree with you that if this was *all* the evidence against this man, that is grasping at straws.

However, there is also the issue that this man, as jury foreman, used his position in the jury to sway the other jury members to make a ruling that was in direct conflict with the instructions handed down by the judge; then he *went on record* bragging about it. So, not only does he have an MO, he also acted in a manner that suggests prejudice/bias.

Lastly, he lied during the jury selection process so that he would be put on the jury. That in and of itself also demonstrates bias.

Face it, this man had an agenda and he followed through on that agenda. There is a reason why this is the one flagship case Apple brings up every time they lose another case in another jurisdiction; and this "win" is in serious jeopardy.

The points you make are true, and he has also admitted in interviews that he, himself, holds patents -- technology patents which could potentially be licensed by Apple, among others (we just don't know) -- and that he used his past experiences with patents to instruct the other jurors about patent law.

He has explained exactly what points he convinced the other jurors of (I don't have a direct link here) and attorneys who have been asked about his arguments have said that he was totally off-base and that he

A lie of omission is still a lie. The Judge asked him if he, his family, or anyone very close to him has ever been involved in a lawsuit. When you swear to tell the "whole truth and nothing but the truth", you don't get to say just one example when there were multiple.

Let's say you've been in the hospital three times, once for your appendix, once for your tonsils, and once for a concussion. The doctor asks you "have you ever been in the hospital before?" Are you seriously going to just say "yeah, had my

He was asked if he had *ever* been involved in a lawsuit, and if so to expand on that. He is making erroneous claims that the question only pertained to the preceding 10 years now that he has been called out on that, despite all court transcripts never mentioning a 10 year limit.

Seagate bought out Samsung's HDD division. Due to the history that he had with Seagate and having to file bankruptcy, I'm sure he still harbours some ill will to anyone who had dealings with Seagate.

If he was ever an employee of Apple, Samsung, or a Competitor, then yeah, he should be excluded from the jury, due to the possibility of personal interest in the outcome -- or past employer interest in the outcome (possibilities of being influenced by previous employers, or harboring a disposition towards a

However, Seagate's "hard drive division" is not Seagate. Buying out their business unit, shutting it down, and transferring the business to a Samsung business unit, doesn't make Samsung seagate.

How are your feelings about this relevant to the discussion? What matters is the man's feelings - maybe he ascribed blame to Samsung however logical or illogical. What also matters are Samsung's feelings - did they feel they would be fairly judged. Finally what matters is the mans honesty.

The man lied. He got on the jury in a situation where normally he would have been barred. He then, according to his own admission, broke the law in order to damage Samsung. Those are the facts. The only question is whether Apple knew about his dishonesty and so was complicit. It seems that they did not. This shows that their claim that Samsung should have known was unreasonable.

True, he isn't a former Samsung employee, but an ex-employee of someone Samsung is invested in.None of which matters terribly much, since the real issue is not disclosing a lawsuit he was a party in, when he was instructed to do so.

Can you imagine how short the discussions on Anthropogenic Global Warming would be without "intelligent but intellectually dishonest commenters"? Granted, there'd still be the first post whores, the seriously off-topic racist and misogynistic comments, and a few clueless individuals discussing the heat output of their Rand McNally lighted globes.

Now you're committing a grave mistake. You're trying to bring reason into something that is basically isn't about reason at all.

If this Vermin Hogan had been a man of reason, he would have realized that whatever he lost long a ago is gone, and creating a mess for anyone in anyway related to Seagate won't make that undone. It will only create trouble for himself starting by having to do jury duty and possibly ending by being in receiving end of criminal prosecution as well as a retaliatory lawsuit from a very angry, multi-billion company with extremely expensive lawyers who can make him live in a cardboard box for the rest of his life, and the resources to follow him to the end of the earth if it's what it takes.

However, he has thrown all that out the window in the name of getting even. Reason have no place in this.

you aren't going to lose a fight just to have an opportunity to fight again.

Of course you are. The second time you have the fact that they only won the first time round by cheating to use against them. You've introduced a bias against them that wouldn't be there if you'd cried "foul" early in the first trial.

Or they're just trying to use every single card they can get.They're not incompetent, the only way anyone found out about the foreman's history is that one of Samsung's legal team happened to be married to someone who was involved in the foreman's legal battle with Seagate and after all the media focus they recognised him. Had that not happened, it's highly unlikely that anyone would have found out about this.Apple is trying to argue that Samsung's lawyers had plenty of time to do their research on the jury and issue any objections - yet this shows that Apple didn't know, either. So Apple is basically trying to say that Samsung's lawyers are incompetent for not doing something that Apple's own lawyers didn't do.I wouldn't call that lying, I'd call that sleazy.

Or they're just trying to use every single card they can get.
They're not incompetent, the only way anyone found out about the foreman's history is that one of Samsung's legal team happened to be married to someone who was involved in the foreman's legal battle with Seagate and after all the media focus they recognised him. Had that not happened, it's highly unlikely that anyone would have found out about this.
Apple is trying to argue that Samsung's lawyers had plenty of time to do their research on the jury and issue any objections - yet this shows that Apple didn't know, either. So Apple is basically trying to say that Samsung's lawyers are incompetent for not doing something that Apple's own lawyers didn't do.

... except that Samsung, being in such a close relationship to Seagate, had access to Seagate's records and would have been easier able to find the conflict. I mean, you probably have no idea if I've ever been sued and by whom, but if someone sued your spouse, you'd probably know about it. If you and I got into a lawsuit and that person was on the jury, you'd probably notice them long before I ever would, just as I'd probably notice the other jury person who sued me long before you would.

Seagate's records from 20 years ago? Never mind that there's a difference between Seagate's records and the records of the law firm that represented them, you're assuming that they still even have those records and that the records are filed in some easily searchable way. 1993? Were they even electronic, then? There's a lot of unknowns and it's incredibly unrealistic to expect anyone to look through 20 years of records, legal ones at that.However the key thing to remember is that Hogan deliberately misled. He was asked, repeatedly, if he had any prior legal involvement with any of the participating companies and he didn't raise his hand. Had he done that and explained his position, he would have been tossed out of the Jury. This is why it's a filing of juror misconduct.

Seagate's records from 20 years ago? Never mind that there's a difference between Seagate's records and the records of the law firm that represented them, you're assuming that they still even have those records and that the records are filed in some easily searchable way. 1993? Were they even electronic, then? There's a lot of unknowns and it's incredibly unrealistic to expect anyone to look through 20 years of records, legal ones at that.
However the key thing to remember is that Hogan deliberately misled. He was asked, repeatedly, if he had any prior legal involvement with any of the participating companies and he didn't raise his hand. Had he done that and explained his position, he would have been tossed out of the Jury. This is why it's a filing of juror misconduct.

Except that you're being contradictory... On the one hand, you're saying that the business relationship between Seagate and Samsung is tenuous and records from that far back are irrelevant, if not lost, and on the other hand, you're saying that the business relationship is so intricate and involved that anyone with a problem with Seagate must be biased against Samsung.

I think you're misunderstanding my words (I would say twisting them but in the interests of being amicable on the internet I'll assume you don't have any ill intention). I'm not saying that the business relationship between Seagate and Samsung is tenuous at all, I never said any such thing. What I did say was that the records" you're speaking of could just as equally apply to the law firm that represented Seagate at the time and not necessarily Seagate's own records.What I'm then saying is that the records

I think you're misunderstanding my words (I would say twisting them but in the interests of being amicable on the internet I'll assume you don't have any ill intention). I'm not saying that the business relationship between Seagate and Samsung is tenuous at all, I never said any such thing. What I did say was that the records" you're speaking of could just as equally apply to the law firm that represented Seagate at the time and not necessarily Seagate's own records.
If Hogan had been a jury member in a suit, or an expert, or talkie, I could see the reference being in he law firm's records rather than Seagate's, but a past plaintiff against them?

More to the point, I'm saying it's more likely that Samsung had knowledge of Hogan (although they may have lost the records/not looked) than that Apple knew about him.

...I had to read that about 3 times to figure out where my quote ended and your reply began.

Still, I maintain my point that it's a bit unreasonable to think that Samsung should have looked into Seagate's past dealings at all, let alone those from 20 years ago. I do however agree that Apple have even less reason to look into them but I do think it's a valid point that it's rich for Apple to say that Samsung should have known when Apple themselves didn't. Apple's making out like it was some sort of obvious th

This is relevant because it has a potential for bias, and also because this guy did not tell the whole truth in pre-trial questioning, raising the possibility that he was trying to get on the jury to vindicate his legal philosophy on patents. If Samsung had known about the Seagate matter, they could have objected to his being seated on the jury.

It's not about Apple hate. It's about a guy who hated Seagate, and by extension, Samsung who found himself invited to being on a jury where Samsung was being sued over an issue very close to his heart.

If this guy were a judge in this case, he would have had to recuse himself. In fact, he was asked about information to determine if he should be on the jury at all and he omitted information which unquestionably would have prevented him from being on the jury, let alone foreman. Given the extremely troubled

The issue is that Apple says that a mistrial is inappropriate, because Samsung "should have known" about this. Hence Samsung's response, "Well, when did YOU know about this?"

It's win-win for Samsung, I think--if Apple knew about it, then they're shown to (possibly) have unclean hands. If Apple did NOT know about it, then it's absurd for them suggest that Samsung should have.

If Apple did NOT know about it, then it's absurd for them suggest that Samsung should have.

If it turns out that Apple knew that the juror had a possible grudge against Samsung and said nothing then they might be in trouble - but it wasn't Apple's responsibility to go out and hunt for reasons why the jurors might have a grudge against Samsung. That was Samsung's job, and they should be in a better position than Apple to know who they and their partners have sued over the years...

If the connection between Samsung and this guy is so tenuous that he wasn't in their Little Black Book then its ha

If the connection between Samsung and this guy is so tenuous that he wasn't in their Little Black Book then its harder to suggest that he'd be biassed against them.

I don't believe that is the point--the issue is that he lied (by omission) during jury questioning. His motives for doing so are less clear, and the Seagate connection has been suggested as a possibility. Regardless, it appears that the jury foreman (based on his own statements to the press) acted, at best, improperly... and that opens up the question, "was this a fair trial?"

Meanwhile, remember that the jury also threw out some pretty silly patent claims by Samsung. There are no "good guys" in this case, so if you fancy a retrial, be careful what you wish for.

I haven't stated a position on whether or not I "want" a retrial, and I think my (or your) wishes on the subject really have no bea

All true. Which is why the juries are screened and their honesty is required as a qualification. This guy was not honest which taints the jury trial. A mistrial and a retrial is certainly warranted just as much as if the Judge happened to own Apple stock and failed to recuse himself.

The problem arised when Samsung found out that the foreman of the jury did not answer truthfully, when asked if he was ever involved in a civil lawsuit. So Samsung filed a motion pointing out that problem, and Apple opposed the motion saying: "You should have known." To which Samsung replied: "So when did you know?".
As the lawsuit in question was about two decades ago, it wasn't easy to find (and only the former foreman's interviews and some happy circumstances helped to dig out the lawsuit in question),

On what grounds? That the Foreman was involved in a litigation two decades ago that had nothing to do with either party? Yeah... I can see that logic.

I think the issue isn't that he was involved in litigation, I think the issue is that he concealed it, regardless of his motivation for doing so..

When further Coupled with his statements to the press, which paint a picture of, at best, improper conduct in the jury room, I think it raises questions about how impartial the jury was, and it's worth the judge's time to consider the matter..

Wow... kudos to the foreman... waiting in the tall grass for 20 years for some sweet payback... that billion dollar verdict against Samsung will make Seagate think twice before suing him into bankruptcy ever again. What I wouldn't give to be a fly on the wall at Seagate... they must be shitting their pants, thinking "how did we let this guy fuck us over so hard?"/sarcasm

This makes no sense.

No... it does. The foreman is a twisted, evil person. You see... Seagate isn't without feelings, you know. If they care about people, they'll never do business with any other company again because they now know this foreman might be instrumental in leveraging a billion dollar verdict against anyone who does business with Seagate. This will drive Seagate to despair.

I am concerned. The only harddrives I've ever purchased are Seagate products. I love their multi-year product warranties, and most of my drives are still covered by Seagate's unmatched five year warranties. How can I protect myself against this relentless unforgiving agent of evil that is ruthlessly and systematically taking out anyone with which Seagate does business? Not sure or not if it's related, but someone has poisoned my dog. I'm taking my family on a vacation just to be safe... just until this blow